RWDB

Thursday, March 31, 2011

"Journalist" accused of misquoting and gross exaggeration

Another twist in this sordid saga comes as sources close to [Greens Balmain candidate] Jamie Parker reveal to VEXNEWS that he disputes the quotes attributed to him by “journalist” Antony Loewenstein. “Low-blow” does have a reputation for misquoting or quote-fabricating so we might have to give Parker the benefit of the doubt unless the “journalist” can produce a recording.

It's also worth noting that Loewenstein blames not only Zionists but also the broader Jewish community for the Greens poor showing in New South Wales.

And finally, Loewenstein claims his hatchet job on Jews is a great success:

New Matilda published my investigation yesterday on the Greens. It’s received a huge response, with many people pleased somebody had revealed the levels of hatred directed at the party, Zionist lobby bullying and so-called progressive Jews and others remaining silent in the face of these actions.

Of course, there’s a place for the courts to restrain dangerous speech – speech that seriously incites violence against a group. And there’s a place for the courts to restrain speech that directly flouts necessary court orders and contradicts the interests of justice – we disagree with Bernard Keane’s attempt yesterday to put Andrew Bolt and Derryn Hinch in the same category.

But the court system should not be an arbiter of tastelessness or offensiveness. It is not what it was designed to do, and placing it in that position is actually counterproductive.

The ill-informed, wrong-headed drivel that is served up by commentators like Bolt is part of the cost of freedom of speech, and it is a cost that we believe is worth paying. To paraphrase the apocryphal quote so often attributed to Voltaire: we may not agree with what you say, but we’ll defend to the death the right of people to call it small-minded, hollow, illogical, erroneous, spiteful rot.

Aussie helmet-cam footage Afghanistan

Jews blamed for Greens election drubbing

New Matilda investigates the impact on the New South Wales election of Greens support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. The investigative report totally ignores the single most critical aspect of the controversy: it is appropriate for neither the Marrickville council nor aspiring state politicians to become involved in international issues.

The New Matilda investigation nonetheless specifically targets Jews as contributing to the Greens' election failure:

Jamie Parker revealed to New Matilda the extent of the hatred directed at him during the campaign due to the Greens BDS policy. He had countless letters sent to him calling him a Nazi and Jew hater. His car was vandalised and campaign signs spray-painted with swastikas. He received death threats and some abusers said they knew where he lived. "One letter said I wanted to turn Balmain power station into a gas chamber and the light rail would take people there", Parker tells me. "Lefty Jews told me that you can’t be surprised if extreme people do extreme things but they wouldn’t come out in public and condemn it." He was appalled.

When the Murdoch press editor David Penberthy wrote that, "[Fiona] Byrne’s been busy advocating a polite modern rendering of Kristallnacht in the Inner West", Parker hoped progressive Jews he knew would condemn the offensive comparison. They did not. "These Jews provide cover for extreme actions if they occur. If there’s a sniff of you being critical of Israel, such Jews will attack you and cut you loose." BDS simply made many Jewish people unreasonable and extremely upset, Jews told Parker.

Parker says that the reaction of the Zionist lobby and local Jewish community during the election has revealed that they are willing to allow smears and violent actions against the Greens. Parker, who has spent years working on collaborative projects between local Jews and Palestinians, is now fed up with what he sees as Jewish silence. Local Jewish leaders have contacted him since Saturday to try and repair the damage but they still refuse to apologise for aggressive Jewish behaviour.

How about Greens apologising for abject stupidity in attempting to make BDS an issue?

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Mainstream media ignores news of no consequence

A screening of the controversial film Jenin, Jenin is cut short but "barely registers in the West". Yeah, universities should exhibit any old crap, leaving it to students to decide what's factual and what isn't, because students are ever so discerning.

Research too difficult for Crikey blogger

If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years.

Flannery later refines his speculation:

If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years because the system is overburdened with CO2 that has to be absorbed and that only happens slowly.

In his letter to The Australian, Professor Flannery wrote that if all major emitters adopted a similar level of effort to reach a 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020, and continued to "decarbonise" after that date, the global temperature rise would be capped at 2C later this century and that temperatures would begin to drop by the end of the century.

It's obvious that Flannery's position on the benefits of emissions reductions is fluid, at best.

But yesterday, as the role of the carbon tax in Labor's massive loss in the NSW election dominated federal political exchanges, Mr Abbott quoted Professor Flannery as he ridiculed the tax as "the ultimate millenium bug".

"It will not make a difference for 1000 years," the Opposition Leader told parliament. "So this is a government which is proposing to put at risk our manufacturing industry, to penalise struggling families, to make a tough situation worse for millions of households right around Australia. And for what? To make not a scrap of difference to the environment any time in the next 1000 years."

If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years.

“Not going to drop” is clearly not the same as “make not a scrap of difference”. Nor is “several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years” the same as “not… any time in the next 1000 years”.

Had Jeremy researched this he'd know that Flannery did say that "global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years" yet contradicted himself by saying, in the words of The Australian, "that if all major emitters adopted a similar level of effort to reach a 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020, and continued to 'decarbonise' after that date, the global temperature rise would be capped at 2C later this century and that temperatures would begin to drop by the end of the century."

If Jeremy truly seeks to debunk "intellectual dishonesty" he should be attacking Flannery for making contradictory pronouncements on the benefits of emissions reductions rather than concentrating solely on Abbott's attempt to score political points. After all, Flannery has been put forward as an authority, whereas Abbott is merely a politician.

Monday, March 28, 2011

"Journalist" refuses to accept Greens NSW drubbing

Federal Greens leader Bob Brown yesterday conceded the party had failed to win the seat of Marrickville, their chance at victory ruined by candidate and Mayor Fiona Byrne’s controversial support for a boycott on Israel.

Professor duped

University of Western Australia Winthrop Professor and Australian Professorial Fellow Stephan Lewandowsky might well be an eminently qualified psychologist but he doesn't understand the meaning of "sock puppet", misapplying the term to satirical blogger and Lewandowsky-duper Alene Composta.

Of course, comment sections are abused by more than just sock puppets, but they are also often abusive, especially for scientists and others who are engaged in the climate change arena.

For example, some fellow Australian professors who rely on the peer-reviewed literature to inform their opinions have been likened to Pol Pot, Stalin, and Hitler. In the U.S., climate scientists have had to endure death threats by email as well as dead rats in the (physical) mail. And to top it off, as reported by Clive Hamilton, an Australian activist has received email that talked of "brutal gang-rape" and "horrible torture" of her children.

Notice the seamless segue from the "abuse" of "scientists and others who are engaged in the climate change arena" to "abuse" directed at an unnamed "Australian activist" who was on the receiving end of this:

Climate campaigners have also noticed a surge in the frequency and virulence of this new form of cyber-bullying. The following was received by a young woman (who asked that her name not be used):

"Did you want to offer your children to be brutally gang-raped and then horribly tortured before being reminded of their parents socialist beliefs and actions?

"Burn in hell. Or in the main street, when the Australian public finally lynchs you."

Harsh words true enough but removed from context it's impossible to know if the activist might have deserved the comment. And in view of the Left's current rampage in London, such comments are not always unwarranted.

The bottom line: Lewandowsky was sucked in by a fraud and very much regrets it.

Andy Pitman: If we could stop emissions tomorrow we would still have 20 to 30 years of warming ahead of us because of inertia of the system.

Tim Flannery: If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years.

Does Andrew not understand what “inertia” means? Those two statements are in no way contradictory.

Bolt is right, of course: the statements are contradictory.

Pitman says that even if all emissions cease, inertia will cause temperatures to increase for 20 to 30 years before they stabilize. The unstated assumption is that temperatures would at some point in the not too distant future begin to drop.

Flannery, on the other hand, states that temperatures would not drop for up to a thousand years.

Given that the longevity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is poorly understood, Flannery's 1,000 year figure is pure speculation. Thus for all practical purposes Bolt is right.

Perhaps you should explain why they are not contradictory, Jeremy.Actually they are two different statements. The first says it will take 30 years to reach equilibrium (radiation leaving earth same as that entering). The second says that it will take hundreds to thousands of years for the carbon cycle to reabsorb a significant amount of CO2 for a measurable fall in temperature.

“Thousands of years” is of course again exaggerating the worst case scenario Flannery there describes – “perhaps as much as a thousand years”.

Secondly, it depends whether you’re referring to temperature dropping from NOW, or dropping from the high point. It could be that in Pitman’s scenario the world warms for 20 to 30 years before reaching an equilibrium, and then takes another century or more to drop back below the present figure.

Thirdly, any figure that varies from “hundreds” to “perhaps as much as a thousand” is clearly a figure being given with a big margin of error. The climate is a complex system that changes over a long period of time, and only an idiot would try to declare dates of change with any precision. Or demand such figures.

Finally, we’re talking about a scenario that won’t happen, and it’s a bit pointless to be demanding the scientists waste time answering it. The entire world is not going to cease emissions tomorrow. The point is to get to that situation, or minimise the emissions, as quickly as possible to minimise the destructive change.

Flannery is indeed an idiot for predicting up to a 1,000 year time lag for a drop in temperature.

Loewy speak

There’s no doubt that the country’s refugee policy is out of control, privatised forces (namely Serco) run the system with few checks or balances and journalists often simply ignore the bigger picture but can sensitivity towards vulnerable people not be ignored?

Whoever draws the short straw on editing Leftard's book on disaster capitalism will earn his money and then some.

The right to smoke

The Council of Official Visitors, an independent agency tasked by the Western Australian parliament with protecting the rights of the mentally ill, is very unhappy with the blanket ban on smoking in mental institutions:

Smoking has been banned on public hospital sites for the past two and a half years. Council lobbied against the ban for involuntary patients and continues to argue for designated smoking areas.

There is no doubt that quitting smoking would be of benefit to mental health consumers but Council’s argument is that it is cruel to make people who are already so unwell that they have been made involuntary, give up such a difficult addiction on admission.

It is not the right time to be asking people to go through the terrible nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Although nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is offered to consumers, it does not alleviate all the withdrawal symptoms nor is it an adequate substitute for the emotional and social dependence of smoking. This is particularly evident amongst consumers who regularly complain to Official Visitors about the boredom they experience while on the wards.

The ban is also a further erosion of consumers’ rights and not in accordance with section 5 of the Act which requires that people with a mental illness must receive care and treatment with the least restriction of their freedom and least interference with their rights.

The Council's report – pdf available here – provides examples of the extreme measures undertaken by mentally ill patients seeking to circumvent the smoking ban: "tea" made from nicotine patches and paper clips inserted into power-points to create a cigarette-lighting spark.

PP boyz Dave and Jeremy eat breakfast

In the latest Pure Poison podcast you can not only hear Dave and Jeremy chew, talk while chewing and swallow, you can listen to the ABC's Insiders playing almost intelligibly in the background, Dave's kids playing Wii, Dave cough and almost best of all, Jeremy making excuses for the Greens' extremely poor showing in Saturday's New South Wales election – the best parts of the extended PP podcast are the long periods of silences.

Zero stars out of five – this one is only for die-heard pure Poison fans.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Libya rebel success disappoints Aussie academic

Military intervention of the kind authorised by UN Security Council resolution 1973 last week may make the humanitarian crisis in Libya worse, as it did in Serbia in 1999. Milosevic’s attacks on Kosovars only escalated after NATO's bombing campaign began: it provided a new pretext for ethnic cleansing. Even though the West controls the skies over Libya today as NATO did 12 years ago over former Yugoslavia (without UN approval), we should expect ground attacks by increasingly desperate Gaddafi loyalists to intensify.

This is precisely what is happening at the moment in Misurata and Ajdabiya.

"There is no doubt about it, you can probably hear some of the celebrations behind me, Ajdabiya is in opposition hands," Al Jazeera's James Bays said from the city on Saturday.

Interestingly, Burchill finds much to fault in U.S. Libya policy but offers no support whatsoever for courageous rebels seeking to overthrow, with U.S. support, Gaddafi. For Lefties, opposing the U.S. is more important than supporting self-determination.

Celebrate Earth Hour: it's meaningless but it's a start

Sophie Constance is a recognised leader in the field of "societal management" and its integration with corporate strategy.

She is Director of Societal Business - Corporate Social Leadership, a strategic advisory that helps businesses create value through sustainability management. Focusing on "sustainability alignment" for organisations and multi-sectoral engagement, Societal Business specialises in socio-economic sustainability factors such as values driven leadership, water stewardship, re-framing issues such as poverty alleviation, and other sustainability themes involving public/private sector collaboration.

The threat we face is real. As Dr Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC, wrote in The Age (30 March 10), "Altered frequencies and intensities of extreme weather are expected to have mostly adverse effects on natural and human systems." When we think about the world, not the planet, we can face up to this. It also stops us quibbling about what's human-caused and what's not. The focus of our attention and efforts should be on the major risk to humanity and our world's amazing biodiversity - whether it's the 2010 floods in Pakistan, the 2011 floods in Queensland, the wildfires in Russia, landslides in China, or the recent earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan; whether it's definitely, maybe, or not at all caused by climate change.

It also broadens the issue to everything that affects us. "Saving the planet" is a green issue, but saving the world means addressing social, environmental, economic, and cultural issues: total sustainability.

Finally, talking about the world not the planet changes how we see our role here. In "saving the planet", humanity gives itself the role of custodian. It implies that the planet is ours to use. And that's exactly the attitude that got us into this mess.

If we want to save our world, then we need to remember that it is many communities, not just of human beings, but of plants and animals (ecosystems). Instead of behaving like citizens, we've behaved like consumers. Even the projects to change our behaviour still frame us as consumers.

Sophie has written a mish mash of half-baked, fact-short nonsense imploring us to do the "right thing" in celebrating Earth hour by turning off our lights – it may be only symbolic but it's a start. So if you want to feel good about your contribution to saving the planet turn those lights off for an hour.

Harvard Club promotes muddled thinking and supposition

In current secular upheavals across the Middle East, Arab peoples have demonstrated dissatisfaction with governance of their repressive states. They want dictatorships abolished and replaced by democratic governments where the right to decent wages and good living standards are respected and human rights are upheld. Israel is following the changes with nervousness and some trepidation. Many Israelis continue to believe that their future security and continuing colonisation depends upon neighbouring states being governed by dictatorships backed by the United States, Australia and the West. But WikiLeaks, by exposing such American activities, has put these relationships in doubt. Antony Loewenstein will examine the latest developments and make some predictions about whether Israeli views will change, and how.

The Harvard Club should be deeply embarrassed at having published such nonsense: the muddled thinking and supposition of the bolded section above is so vast as to render it meaningless. Then again, the author-bio is also misleading:

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based independent journalist and writer. He has written for the Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald and Haaretz and many other newspapers and journals across the world. He has published two books: ‘My Israel Question’ (Melbourne University Press, 2009), and ‘The Blogging Revolution’ (Melbourne University Press, 2008) and is currently working on a book about disaster capitalism.

Having book reviews and articles published by newspapers or their online sites does not mean you have written for them.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The wild west in photos

Obsessive obsession denial

Australia's most entertaining Lefty blogger:

I don’t obsess over Bolt: he simply writes a huge amount of crap that’s then published by the biggest media company in the land. And I – and the other writers at Pure Poison and its earlier incarnations – reckon that material often needs a proper response.

It is also worth noting that Jeremy sees Pure Poison as the natural successor to Blair/Bolt Watch, which evolved from Bolt Watch. Thus Pure Poison is nothing more than Bolt Watch with a few other right-wing writers thrown in for the sake of variety. A quick look at the numbers confirms this.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Do I offend?

Science versus shock jocks in battle for democracy

Professor Garnaut says while the science is clear on the issue of climate change, it is up to individuals to make sure they are properly informed.

"There's no doubt that there is a battle, an awful battle between ignorance and knowledge going on," he said.

"It's a great contest between the academies of sciences of Australia ... the academies of science of all of the countries of scientific achievement on the one side, and the shock jocks of Australia on the other.

"We've had these battles before in the history of our civilisation. This battle will have quite a lot to do with the future prosperity of Australia, the future quality of our civilisation.

"Our democracy is up to it."

Yet it is still unclear how the billions to be spent on reducing emissions will benefit either Australians or the planet – reduced emissions will make us feel like we're doing our part but will we, or the planet, really benefit?

Aussie forces Afghanistan footage

Hacking hoax

Confronted with the evidence, Jeremy Sear belatedly admits that his hacking claim was based on delusions of persecution rather than on fact but can't resist further delusional speculation and age-based innuendo:

Didn’t occur to me to do this, but one of the people with an intense detail [WTF? – ed.] in the minutiae of this blog and my life in general has suggested checking the wayback machine, which reveals that the error was there probably from when I first typed the blogroll link. Sitting there, pointing to a vacant wordpress blog that the hoaxer – after trawling through all my links in case there was one he could take advantage of – eventually used.

That’s a relief – the thought the hoaxer had been tinkering around inside my WordPress account doing god-knows-what was rather disturbing.

So: it appears there was no hacking – just a very old URL error that one of my bizarrely dedicated followers (what did you do today, dear/lonely old man next door? I went through every detail of some Victorian barrister’s weblog to see if I could find something to abuse him with! My life has meaning!) took full advantage of until I fixed it.

Or it could be that an Anonymous Lefty reader, in researching something at the site, clicked on the original Blair/Bolt Watch link supplied by Jeremy only to be led to a nonexistent blog. But even if someone went "trawling though" all of Jeremy's "by me" links this wouldn't exactly be a big chore since there are only six links to click on.

And notice how Jeremy belittles his "bizarrely dedicated" "stalker" – me – as an "old man"? Then there's his "abuse" complaint, which fits in perfectly with his bogus claims to be the victim of "stalking" and "hacking".

This is but more of Jeremy's pathetic attention seeking – hey look at me, some pathetic old man with no life is obsessively stalking me, abusing me and hacked my blog (or knows who did) and is being mean to me in general; it just isn't fair.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

One man's rubbish...

It is common in Western Australia for anyone with something they want to get rid of that someone might find useful – an old bike, a bed-frame or whatever – to put that item on the road verge for collection by anyone who might want it. It emerges that picking up any such unwanted discarded items might be stealing.

The arrest of a Melbourne man, who says he took a vacuum cleaner from a hard rubbish collection, has raised questions about the legality of scavenging abandoned goods.

The offered WordPress blog was duly registered and activated. Tool boy refuses to acknowledge that he screwed up, however, now claiming:

There are some so stupid that they are pretending to believe that(a) I set up the “parody” to abuse myself;(b) I then changed the BBWP link here to link to it; and(c) I then contacted my stalker to let him know about the site attacking myself;(d) And I then fixed it up and claimed to be hacked, you know, “for the sympathy”.

Yeees. These are some smart people.

"These people" may not be very smart but they're a damn site smarter than this particular dumb-assed Lefty.

Actually, my "benefit of the doubt" good will seems to have been a little generous.

If you check the Wayback Machine, you'll see that the link Jeremy claims was just recently changed by an evil stalky rightwing hacker has actually always linked to http://blairboltwatchproject.wordpress.com/ (which until recently was an unclaimed non-existent blog, a fact someone obviously quite legitimately took advantage of just recently). It's only recently been changed to link to http://blairboltwatch.wordpress.com/.

So I'm calling bullshit on Jeremy and his "poor me I've been hacked by evil rightwing extremist stalkers" claim.

I STILL have the utmost sympathy for anyone, Left or Right, whose blog really IS hacked, as that is just one of those things that needs blanket condemnation from everyone in the Blogosphere.

But I think crying "HACKED!!" when you haven't been, whether it's to get fake sympathy or cover up for one of your own mistakes or whatever, is a pretty shabby thing to do too. What a pathetic little creep. He'll have only himself to blame if people aren't especially eager to empathise with him next time he cries wolf.

Oops.

Correction Utah rather than Idaho is the first U.S. state to designate a state firearm.

Peer review does not guarantee the accuracy of global warming science

Scientists might hold their own political views, but the very nature of peer review and the scientific method rids the results of most value-laden bias, leaving the most reliable and impartial account of the world humanity can muster.

Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong.

And here's Horton some 10 years later, after The Lancet published and later withdrew Andrew Wakefield's notorious peer reviewed study linking the MMR vaccine to autism:

The Lancet had done what it could to establish that the research was valid, by having it peer-reviewed. But there is a limit, he said, to what peer-review can ascertain.

Peer review is the best system we have got for checking accuracy and acceptability of work, but unless we went into the lab or examined every case record, we can't ever finally rule out some element of misconduct. The entire system depends upon trust. Most of the time we think it works well, but there will be a few instances – and when they happen they are huge instances – where the whole thing falls apart.

Tim Dean is wrong to assert that peer review does anything to guarantee accuracy.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Nazi Jews nonsense

Nazi Germany's Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei, Secret State Police) was created by Hermann Göring and eventually controlled by Heinrich Himmler. The Gestapo was outside the judicial system, was not subject to administrative review and operated with impunity without regard to individual's rights.

Such hyperbolic nonsense should disqualify Loewenstein as a commentator on matters relating to Israel but it's highly likely the ABC, Crikey and other biased outlets will continue to publish his rubbish.

Stalked and hacked, really

PP boy Jeremy Sear is really copping it lately: I needle him constantly, as do my commenters; Alene Composta publishes embarrassing emails from both Jeremy and his betrothed; and Andrew Bolt ridicules him.

Everyone's favourite blogging barrister has a link at his personal blog to Blair/Bolt Watch but the dolt got the address wrong – he has it as blairboltwatchproject.wordpress.com rather than blairboltwatch.wordpress.com.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Blair/Bolt Watch II, real or fake

There seems to be some doubt as to the authenticity of the lameness that is the reincarnation of Blair/Bolt Watch. Any doubt is easily resolved by visiting Jeremy Sear's personal blog, where the new version of Blair/Bolt Watch is linked in the "by me" area in the right sidebar.

Update The link to Blair/Bolt Watch has changed but Google cache shows it as it was.

You want to do what to my labia?

Let Libyans sort out their problems

Shame on all the Western journalists and commentators cheering on the no-fly zone with an understanding that goes no further than “we must do something“. If you want to be in the military, get in uniform and fight a war. If not, settle down.

Better that "we" do nothing so Libyans can sort things out for themselves.

Nuclear "disaster" porn

To read a figure such as 1,000 microsieverts per hour and ask 'Is that safe?' is like asking whether 40 degrees Celsius is too hot to survive. It depends on a number of factors such as, how long are you exposed to it, what type is it, or what were you wearing at the time.

In the case of Fukushima, most of the radiation being emitted is gamma radiation, emitted by radioactive isotopes such as xenon-137, krypton-85, iodine-131 and caesium. With the exception of caesium-137, most of these have short half-lives (decay quickly). The concentrations, up to this point, have been very low.

This is in contrast to Chernobyl, where material from the core of the reactor exploded into the air, raining down across a large swathe of Europe. It included large amounts of caesium-137 and strontium-90, which become part of the food chain. Radiation levels close to the reactor were up to thousands of times greater than those currently measured at Fukushima.

The lack of a containment vessel, disregard for safety procedures, and a delay in evacuating people near the reactor made the effects at Chernobyl much worse.

Comparing Chernobyl with Fukushima is like comparing apples with oranges.

It's good to see the ABC injecting some sense into the otherwise near-hysterical media treatment of a nuclear mishap.

Update More cold water is dumped on the overheated disaster hype:

The worst nuclear accident in history was the Chernobyl explosion of 1986 in what is now Ukraine. Nuclear experts have repeatedly stated that the Japanese situation cannot get as bad as Chernobyl. New Scientist explains why.

Al Qaeda goes glossy

The 31-page glossy, Al-Shamikha, which translates loosely as "The Majestic Woman", features a niqab-clad woman posing with a sub-machine gun on its cover.

Much like Elle or Cosmopolitan, it includes advice on finding the right man ("marrying a mujahideen"), how to achieve a perfect complexion (stay inside with your face covered), and provides tips on first aid and etiquette.

Alongside sisterly advice such as "not [to] go out except when necessary" and to always wear a niqab for protection from the sun, the magazine runs interviews with martyr's wives and praises those who give their lives in the name of the editors' interpretation of Islam. "From martyrdom, the believer will gain security, safety and happiness," it says.

For those readers not quite ready for such a drastic step, it argues the pros and cons of honey facemasks and lobbies against "towelling too forcibly".

What, nothing on the AK-47 as fashion accessory? And what about tips for suicide bomb-proof makeup for those females who want their detached head to look its best after detonation?

PP boy Jeremy Sear, Crikey's exposer of intellectual dishonesty and media bias, today complains about "a national media where 'balance' is defined as giving equal space to a crazy, implausible, flat-out-wrong assertion by someone on one side, as to a sensible, backed-up, provable assertion by someone on the other."

Lack of writing talent no hindrance for anti-Israel Lefty

My writing is at best serviceable in that I can, at the very least, make a point unambiguously. On the other hand, damn near everything media darling Antony Loewenstein writes is mangled and requires interpretation. For example:

Soon after Sydney’s Marrickville council announced in December to embrace boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel to force the Jewish state to abide by international law — Greens and Labor councillors supported the move — federal Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese entered the debate.

ABC online editor seduced by election influence potential

It seems to be that if we can link the Liberals to this crotch talk then there is still a chance we can nudge the election toward Labor, or at least do something to limit what looks like it will be catastrophic damage inflicted by voters.

And:

The important thing is that we do everything we can, use every tool we know, to help Kristina out of the jam some silly moves and a lot of Murdoch venom has put her in.

Hence Green's decision to publish an ABC-edited version of Composta's The "Moosing" Of Kristina K blog post. With the removal of her article from The Drum poor Alene misses out on her opportunity for an anticipated "new career as a an ABC-validated and authorised opinionsmith." Green on the other hand gets to keep his job despite the pulling of yet another article he approved.

Worse still, after Composta's article was quietly ditched, the ABC stiffed her for the $200 publication fee. Not to worry Alene, the book deal will be worth a fortune.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Commenting malfunction

Comments are not currently being moderated so no comments have been deleted or held back. Should you have lodged a comment that didn't appear, it's because Blogger is not posting all comments received. If you lodge a comment that doesn't appear I can only suggest that you relodge the comment.

My long-term pseudonymous stalker and the two News Ltd bloggers for whom he/she/it acts as a shameless smearer of critics, are amusingly fairly excited today about what they apparently think are two excellent “gotchas” of, well, me.

1. Using a pseudonym. If you believe the attack, apparently the three Bs now think there’s something wrong with using a pseudonym – if you’re not them. My accusers have all either used (or still use) pseudonyms themselves (even when they wrote for a paid site) or regularly publish and link to people who do. So is it wrong or not?

Now since Jeremy some time ago, via his Victorian Bar email account, demanded my contact details for the service of legal documents – that never arrived – and my details were duly provided, Jeremy has to know that I blog under my real name. Thus Jeremy is accusing either Bolt or Blair, or both, of publishing under an assumed name. Good luck proving that one, barrister-boy.

Then there's Jeremy's last-resort "stalker" nonsense. Everything I know about Jeremy is readily available online. He and his intimates really should be more careful in revealing information about him for all to read if he's going to be all embarrassed and cranky when people refer to it.

But Jeremy insists on compounding his errors:

The first [point, above] should remind readers just how much they get away with using pseudonyms themselves, or by linking to cowardly, creepy attack dogs hiding behind pseudonyms doing their dirty work for them.

As I've already stated, and Jeremy well knows, I blog using my real name.

And just to round out Jeremy's persecution delusions, there this:

And Andrew Bolt thinks publicly attacking my fiancee on news.com.au for a private email is legitimate, does he?

This is more of Jeremy's victimisation bullshit: he and his betrothed like to operate as a team, so Keri James is fair game for criticism.

According to Jeremy's commenters his anonymous comments in support of himself, and use of a fake name on talkback radio, are insignificant when compared to years old comments at Tim Blair's personal blog. The Left really does operate in an alternative reality.

Japan nuclear disaster: real or imagined?

On the other hand, the worst case estimates of the cumulative death toll from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster are less than a million, or approximately equal to the number of EU-27 road deaths over 25 years at 39,000 deaths per year – the EU-27 road toll has fallen dramatically over since 1986, so its 25 year total would, in fact, be considerably greater. Yet anti-nuclear campaigners want nuclear power outlawed because of its allegedly extreme dangers.

In the wake of the disastrous Japan earthquake and tsunami, mainstream media, and in particular televised media, are engaging in an orgy of nuclear disaster speculation. Granted Japanese government and corporate representatives have been something less than vociferous in releasing information about the nuclear situation but this understandable, if not entirely justified, by the undoubtedly very difficult circumstances on the ground in Japan.

So at this point in time it's best to remain calm and take with a grain of salt the scare-mongering being cranked out by the media.

Non-expert all-rounder offers opinions on Palestinian soccer match

One HD offers a video report on the first ever Palestinian international football (soccer) match played as a home game. Billed as an "Arab affairs journalist", which he isn't, Antony Loewenstein provides less than 30 seconds of "expert" commentary.

Goebbels was right: repeat a big lie often enough and people will believe it's true.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Jeremy Sear's use of a fake name is no big deal, really

LOL. Apparently asking a question of a polemicist on talkback radio is "hassling" them.

Jeremy is obviously keen to divert attention away from his clandestine activities.

It just doesn't seem to have clicked with Jeremy that he is no longer "just some guy with a blog" but that he writes for a media powerhouse and can "now actually ring the subject of a piece and say 'it’s Jeremy from Crikey' and they’ll answer the phone." Or as he writes on his personal blog:

When you're a blogger, and you're criticising something a journalist has published, you don't email or call them first - partly because you don't think it really matters, but also because you've little confidence they'd reply to you if you did, so why bother? However, when you have a professional organisation to name when you contact the person - when you can say "It's Jeremy from Crikey" - then it seems that you actually have a duty to do so. Because you can.

It didn't immediately click that I suddenly had the ability to do that, and therefore should. I don't think of myself as a journalist - I'm not trained as a journalist, and this blogging thing is merely a hobby. I'm a lawyer, and a blogger, not a journo. But Crikey is a professional media organisation, and the standards required are higher.

The point has been made, and for anything in Crikey I will henceforth play the journalism game - particularly if I could arguably be seen to be drawing implications about what a journalist has done from their piece, rather than simply commenting on the opinion they've expressed. (Historically that hasn't been a problem, since previous subjects have pretty much exclusively been publishing their mere opinions.)

Still, after almost five years of amateur blogging, it's a bit of a culture shock.

Jeremy should therefore endeavour to meet the high standards he set for himself and use his real name when lodging blog comments and when phoning talkback radio. Then again, Jeremy's anonymous comments and use of false identities no doubt makes him unique amongst Australia's blogging elites. That's no badge of distinction, however.

Jeremy and his Pure Poison cohorts once lodged apparently earth shatteringly important but false charges that Tim Blair commented using a false identity. Yet when Jeremy assumes a false identity, it's no big deal. Hypocrite.

I am very sorry to see what those utter pr*cks, Beck, Blair and Bolt, have done with their repulsive horde of monkeys. Bullies and thugs, the lot of them.

Fiancée Keri joins in:

I noticed that the usual suspects like J F Beck and Tim Blair have been attacking you (no doubt partly because you showed public support for Jeremy). I just wanted to let you know that I thought the post you wrote in response was very brave, and the only reason I'm not posting this on your blog is because I'm conscious that would make things worse.

Also, I'm fairly sure that "Spot the Dog", one of your followers, is J F Beck. I'd suggest you block him if you can. I know you can't stop him from reading, but if he knows that you're on to him, it might give him pause. I can't prove that it's him, but we're fairly sure it is.

Nice try Kerimy; I'm not Spot the Dog and never have been. Leftards are nothing if not entertaining; duplicitous yes, but oh so entertaining:

You can tell from the note that Jeremy believed in me, a faith that gave strength to my blogging and stiffened my conviction. But it didn't last. By the time he had published that Pure Poison post, this is what he was saying about my blogging. It was an "assinine gotcha".

Crikey blogger adopts assumed identity to hassle Andrew Bolt

Compare "Jeff's" comments on the situation in Libya here (at 32:30) to Sear's commentary in the latest Pure Poison podcast to confirm that the voice does indeed belong to Jeremy. Also, "Jeff" makes the same points on air made by Jeremy in writing at his personal blog.

Anonymous commenting and using an assumed identity are underhanded ways for a contributor to a "news" site with mainstream aspirations – Crikey – to attack ideological opponents. What's going on here, Jeremy?

Privatisation of government services is not the same as selling off assets

Antony Loewenstein's best-selling My Israel Question is, in its first edition at least, a poorly researched fiasco of opinionated misinformation. Unbelievable as it may seem, Loewenstein's upcoming book on the evils of capitalism is almost certain to be an even greater disaster.

Loewenstein is of late fixed on service provider Serco as exemplifying all that is wrong with privatisation. He is unable to distinguish between the privatisation of government services and the selling off of government assets, however, as here, for example.

United Voice union is leading a campaign to fight the government’s expected $3 billon contract with Serco to privatise Fiona Stanley Hospital. Public protests in Perth are on the increase and union leaders tell Crikey that the sell-off move has happened without any public consultation.

Contracting with Serco to provide hospital services is not the same as selling-off the hospital. Duh!

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Twas ever thus

U.S. warship's peaceful mission

The U.S. military is uniquely able not only to project power worldwide, it can also provide assistance anywhere it's needed:

Nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan arrived off the coast of Japan Sunday to help with relief operations there.

According to the US Department of Defense the 97-thousand ton aircraft carrier, which was scheduled to participate in a Korea-US joint maneuvering exercise this month, was immediately dispatched to Japan to support the Self-Defense Force by providing refueling operations for the country's helicopters and transporting troops to disaster areas.

Powerful, sexy and 100% English

Lefty goes all kick-ass neo-con

So, we’re going to sit back and watch Gaddafi slaughter his people, are we?

It’s pretty disappointing to learn that, after witnessing the protests and clear desperation of the Libyan people to be free of Gaddafi, the rest of the world is apparently content to just sit back and look the other way while he bombs them back into submission. It’s 2011, and that’s apparently the best we can do.

By "we" is meant the United States, the only country capable of enforcing the desired no-fly zone. But the U.S. should surely wait for U.N. approval of any such mission; given the rate at which U.N. administrative wheel turn, and owing to China and Russia objecting to any further projection of U.S. power, it's likely Libyan rebels will be ground to dust before any meaningful action eventuates. Now if Dubya was still president...

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Carbon price costs greater than benefits

Overshadowed by news of the tragic Japan earthquake is this from Australian National University Crawford School of Economics professor Jeff Bennett:

"The Prime Minister said we've got to do something or else we're going to be left behind - it's important to realise that first of all, very few countries around the world are doing much about this [pricing carbon]," he said.

"And secondly, even if everybody did something about, if all nations in the world did what Australia's doing, still the impact on greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would be so small, [it would] not have any real or meaningful impact on the pattern of climate across the planet.

"What that means is that the Australian economy is going to have this quite substantial cost imposed on it, with very little to show by way of benefit."

What's the deal? IAJV has no members and no leadership so there's no way Loewenstein and Slezak should use their loose affiliation with the organisation to add cachet to their names, making it seem that IAJV approves of the BDS statement.

But hey, "Antony Loewenstein, Independent Australian Jewish Voices" expresses much more authority than does "Antony Loewenstein, wanna be journalist".

Cash waiting for "hoaxer" Alene Composta

On [Catallaxy], and on Andrew Norton's, blogger “jc” has offered a reward of $3000 to the first person to hoax The Age, Sydney Morning Herald or Financial Review with an op-ed “on AGW or any subject the left holds dear. It has to be a hoax and the person outs themselves after it is published.”

Idiotic speculation protected

Lefties are very much inclined to use social media and blogs to share information about themselves, often revealing the most intimate of details. Yet if this publicly available information is referred to Lefties often scream "STALKING!" or some such.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are generally more circumspect in revealing personal information online.

Deprived of volunteered information from their ideological opponents Lefties are forced to delve and speculate in seeking to reveal the information they crave but cannot lay their hands on. This delving and speculation can prove disastrous:

In 2009, [Crikey editor Jonathan] Green withdrew an error-soaked exposé describing [Tim Blair] as “dishonest” and someone who “can’t be trusted”. (A settlement was reached out of court.)

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Apology

I owe ABC online editor Jonathan Green an apology after yesterday criticising him for promoting Alene Composta's nonsensical smear article but then failing to note the article's steathy removal. Green is obviously a very busy man as his Twitter activity indicates:

for the first time since 2003 RT @s_bridges: I no longer have avocado in my beard.

I mean, a spurious attack on Liberal politicians, replete with sexual innuendo, later unceremoniously consigned to oblivion by Green, is nowhere near as important as the food residue, or lack thereof, in the beard of former PP boy Scott Bridges, hired by Green during his editing tenure at Crikey.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Research averse barrister wrong again

According to the Newspoll survey last weekend, 53 per cent of voters say they are against the government’s plan to combat global warming with a carbon price that puts up the cost of gas, electricity and petrol.

Jeremy doesn't notice that the "question" lacks a question mark and isn't the Newspoll question at all – it's a characterisation of the question provided by the article's author Dennis Shanahan.

UNDER THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S PLAN TO PUT A PRICE ON CARBON, THE PRICE OF ENERGY SOURCES, SUCH AS PETROL, ELECTRICITY AND GAS MAY BECOME MORE EXPENSIVE. WOULD YOU PERSONALLY BE IN FAVOUR OR AGAINST PAYING MORE FOR ENERGY SOURCES, SUCH AS PETROL, ELECTRICITY AND GAS IF IT WOULD HELP TO SLOW GLOBAL WARMING?

The ABC stealthily removes article

The ABC has, without any explanation whatsoever, consigned to oblivion Alene Composta's The Drum Unleashed contribution titled "The 'moosing' of Kristina K". The cached article, while it lasts, is here.

The ABC should not remove or alter articles without explaining exactly what has been done and why. To do otherwise is underhanded and indicates the ABC has something to hide.

What do senior NSW Liberals mean when they refer to premier Keneally as 'the moose'? Look it up. http://bit.ly/ezagn8 #IWD

Green follows-up here but makes no mention of the article's removal. This is rather odd in that as The Drum's editor he must have approved the ditching of Composta's moose nonsense. How embarrassment, as they say.

Monday, March 07, 2011

Barrister bewitches

My training is in psychology and counselling, but when I read Jeremy Sear's posts I really wish I also had studied the law. The Melbourne barrister has been a fixture of the online progress-o-sphere for many years and has the distinction of having got the better of Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt on many issues. He runs the Pure Poison blog at Crikey and is tireless in his efforts to counteract the oppressive and instinctive gagging of dissent that is the staple of Australia's conservative media establishment. (At a risk of being sexist, he must turn quite a few heads at parties, demos, and other social functions. Smart and a spunk too! Some people have it all. Don't worry, Jeremy, I'm far too old for you!).

And:

His legal training has equipped him to cut straight to the issues, to bare the core of any argument. It is why his blog is on my daily list of sites to check.

The linked article concerns the privatisation of specific government services rather than the "selling off of public assets".

It is unclear how selling off state assets and privatising government services "debase democracy".

The quoted author is no expert on anything.

The quoted author is promoting an upcoming book on "disaster capitalism".

The quoted author is famous for gross errors, once locating Lebanon inside northern Israel.

The quoted author has not written for any major MSM publications in that he was not employed by corporate media as a writer, instead contributing articles, many of them book reviews, as a freelancer.

The quoted author, claimed to have penned a best-seller, writes prose that would embarrass a high-schooler. To wit: "The Arab world has created these democratic movements despite of us not because of us." And: "Tariq Ali and John Keane both expressed admiration for what’s happening across the Middle East and how out of touch US and Western foreign policy seems in response." Both from the same paragraph.

$750 million white elephant?

One problem with wind farms is that they tend to generate electricity a long way from where it's needed, and so it is with the massive 18,000 hectare, $750 million, 111 turbine Collgar wind farm near Merredin. Construction is well underway and it was hoped that power would begin feeding into the grid within months.

A thoughtful conservative blogger

Pure Poison podcast 15: 50 minutes of Lefty spin

In the latest Pure Poison podcast, PP boy Dave Gaukroger finds it "churlish" that conservative commentators dismissed "out of hand" death threats allegedly received by MP Tony Windsor. Gaukroger goes "out on a limb" in predicting there's more to these "death threats" than we know. Well, there would have to be a lot more to the threats if they are to be considered as threats on Windsor's life: "You die. You die you f---ing c--t" from a nut-job is not actually a death threat.

Dave and sidekick Jeremy Sear then allege that conservative columnists Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine and Piers Akerman dispense over-the-top, vitriolic commentary to intentionally incite vocal right-wing nut-jobs. The PP boyz can think of no-one on the Left other than Catherine Deveny engaging in such vitriolic commentary, but Deveny doesn't count anyway since she's a cutting-edge comedienne.

Okay, that's it for this week's extended length 50 minute Pure Poison podcast: I stopped listening 30 minutes into it. If you can stomach listening to the whole thing, feel free to post in comments anything I missed.

On a related topic, Jeremy earlier in the week had a big Lefty sad about a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the free speech right of religious zealots to protest at the funerals of American soldiers. As it turns out, barrister Jeremy was wrong about the substance of the case and now grudgingly admits that the court's decision "seems consistent and not unreasonable". Rather than follow Sear standard operating procedure in stealthily altering his original post, Jeremy admits his error. The PP boy is maturing into a man.

Academics at odds

Lefty economist John Quiggin, leader of the "Risk and Sustainable Management Group at the University of Queensland" deems that the controversial management plan for the Murray-Darling "did mostly get it right":

A solution to the environmental, economic and social problems of the Murray Darling Basin is within our reach.

His comments follow months of controversy over whether the Water Act of 2007 had forced the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to prepare a reform plan that favoured the environment over social and economic concerns.

In a statement to a Senate inquiry, Professor Briscoe said there was no doubt the Water Act gave priority to the environment, and claims to the contrary were ''poppycock''.

According to Quiggin, a failure to properly communicate the provisions of the management plan is the real problem. Or perhaps Bricoe is right in claiming that environmental concerns were given too high a priority.

Friday, March 04, 2011

Spreading the dumbness

Western Australians will be dumbed down over the next few days with the appearance of Antony Loewenstein at the Perth International Arts Festival. I plan to attend the Saturday Gaza session and will hopefully be able to report on Loewenstein's significant revelations – there is, of course, no better way to find out what's really happening in Gaza than listening to the anti-Israel ranting of an Australia-based, anti-Israel atheist Jew. Stay tuned.